


And So It Goes

by Justine (Sanj)



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Episode Related: Cypher, First Times, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-05-10
Updated: 1999-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 04:53:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/794160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanj/pseuds/Justine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A missing scene from "Cypher," in which Jim explains why he came home early, and Blair learns many things from the discussion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And So It Goes

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the late-night IRC Crack "Cypher" Research Squad, especially Sorka and Wolfling, to Virg for her truly astounding beta-reading, to Brak for his extreme patience, and to Litz for letting me tell her a bedtime story.
> 
> For Francesca, in grateful reply to "Push and Pull," and for Owlet, to make her a Shiny Happy Person.

Blair listened to Jim's words about remaining objective, and remembered his friend's face after Danny Choi had been murdered, and held his tongue. It wasn't that Jim was being hypocritical. He wasn't. Jim was as capable of hypocrisy as he was capable of, say, dying his hair purple. 

Jim really _believed_ in objectivity, in much the same way as did Blair. Theoretically, it was best to keep your emotions out of the way. To rely on brainpower and logic and quantifiable fact. In reality -- 

In reality, it just wasn't possible. And Blair knew that, and Jim knew it, and each knew that the other knew it. But they still held it out there, like a talisman, something to protect against things that were too horrible to face without putting some kind of distance between yourself and _it_. Blair shuddered again, thinking of poor Susan Frasier, dead in her bathtub, the garish yellow scarf, her staring, lifeless eyes. 

Like somebody'd walked over his grave. 

He shook himself and started to pick up the remains of his aborted date with Christine. Jim just watched him, much more amused than Blair would have thought. He _leaned_ against the post in the kitchen, in that tight black t-shirt and jeans, calmly drinking a beer; Blair wanted to yell at him for barging in, apologize for locking him out, and bless him for bailing him out of another relationship that was going rapidly nowhere. 

"Sorry I broke things up in here," Jim said finally, quietly. 

"Nah, man, like I said, we were pretty much doomed tonight." She had gotten jealous though. It was a good sign, maybe; he wasn't sure what he wanted from Christine. 

"You like her, though." It wasn't really a question. 

"Yeah, I do. We've been friends for a while now, kind of flirting, nothing serious. Then her boyfriend just dumped her last month. I think I'm transition man." 

"And you're okay with that?" Jim joined him on the couch, close enough to touch. What was with him? He seemed laid-back, calm, friendlier than usual. Much friendlier. And that outfit. This close, Blair could see every line of muscle rippling underneath the black t-shirt, and the way those jeans clung to his crotch.... 

Deadly. 

Blair was acutely aware that he was sitting there in his shabby striped boxers and rumpled, half-open shirt, and he shrugged, combing his fingers through his hair, trying to look nonchalant. "Yeah. Friends do that for each other, you know?" 

"Maybe in your part of the world," Jim said, diffident. "I've never had a friend who'd do that." //Never had one _before_ ,// Blair thought he heard, but he wasn't sure. 

"So," Blair said. He'd never in his life been so uncertain of where a discussion was going. If it were any man other than Jim, dressed like that and sprawled right _in_ his personal space, Blair would have known they were flirting. If it were Jim, looking any less like a refugee from the Castro, he'd've known this was strictly a buddy conversation, and his temporary roommate was just warming up to him. 

"So," he said again. "I guess it'll be less awkward for you after I find someplace else to live, huh?" 

"I meant to talk to you about that," Jim replied, leaning on his elbows, staring at the beer he was dangling between his legs. 

"I've been looking, man, honest, it's just, well." He hadn't really been looking, and they both knew that, too. Recent events had kind of kept him busy. And a little too strapped for cash. And way, way too comfortable here. As evidenced by the stunt he'd tried to pull with Christine tonight, pretending the place was his. 

Stupid. 

"I suppose you're probably really wanting to get your own space," Jim said, still staring at his beer. What was this? 

"Truth?" Blair ventured. 

Jim looked up, looked him right in the eye. "Always." 

"Not really. I mean, I'm not that anxious to find my own place." Ellison frowned at this -- not a perhaps-I'll-kill-you frown, but definitely not the smile Blair had been hoping for, so he continued, a little nervously: "Probably haven't been putting as much effort into it as I should. I'm sorry, Jim." 

"Well," Jim said, staring over Blair's head now, out at the city lights. "Truth?" 

"Yeah," Blair said. "Always, man." 

They sat there a long moment; Blair could see Jim collecting his thoughts. He wondered where this conversation was going; he wished he had a roadmap, or a program. 

"The other day," Jim said. "At the department store. I should've said thank you." 

"You did say thank you." Blair was confused by the apparent non sequitur. 

An early and important problem with the Sentinel's sense of smell and touch had been his extreme sensitivity to the chemical base in most soaps, shampoo and deodorant. Ivory Soap worked all right for a while, and then that sixty-six one hundredths of a percentage had apparently kicked in or something. Some research at the local nature shop had turned up a women's makeup chain that also produced natural soaps and shaving creams with herbal essences suitable for men. 

So there'd been nothing to do but actually go to the chain's counter in the fancy mall department store, a task which had threatened to incapacitate Jim. Blair'd trained his partner to where he could dial everything down at this point; that wasn't the problem. There had simply been no way that Jim Ellison, Master of All Things Buff and Butch, could have been willing -- or even able -- to chat with a store saleswoman about, well, makeup. 

In the end, of course, Blair had done it, picking patiently through the different scents for the right combination of herbal elements that they'd already tested. He'd ended up with a several different soaps to try, a slightly cinnamony shampoo, a shaving cream with just the littlest bit of peppermint and eucalyptus (nothing, in short, vaguely related to fruit or flowers) and -- hell, why not -- the saleswoman's phone number. 

Jim _had_ thanked him. Hell, Jim had been practically effusive. For him, anyway. 

"You have any idea," Jim said, still in that quiet, far-away tone, "exactly what it means to come back to this place at the end of the day?" 

"Um, firsthand," he said, still puzzled, and then realized what Jim was really saying. "You mean for you, with your senses?" 

"Yeah." Jim gestured with his hand around the loft. "I mean, the night you moved in here, you moved all the lighting around." 

"I didn't think you'd mind..." Blair started uncertainly, but Jim waved him quiet. 

"Inside of a week, you found that laundry soap and we washed everything. You dug up that air purifier. No more dust, no more chemicals on the sheets and the pillows. You hung stuff on the walls to eliminate the echo. Found those cleaners that don't smell like that fake pine shit. 

"Chief, I come home to this place at night and I can relax. Completely. For the first time in weeks, I don't have to dial down anything. It's all clean, really _clean_. No musk cologne or ammonia or car exhaust or any of the other crap that sticks in the back of my throat all day. The lights aren't glaring and bright, although I don't know how _you_ can see a damn thing in this place. The place was always quiet, but now..." he stopped in the middle of this recitation, looked away. 

"Now?" Blair prompted. 

"Now it's more, I don't know. Organic. I can hear you breathing; if I listen, I can hear your heart beat." Jim seemed embarrassed by this admission. 

"Really? I mean, of course you can." Blair was stunned, for a reason he couldn't quite name until he'd already opened his mouth and then it was too late. "You'd listen for my pulse?" 

"Sorry." Jim slumped back against the back of the couch. "Yeah. See, that's the thing. The point I'm trying to make here." 

"Go on, man. Make it." 

"My point is," Jim said, "that you came here and you made everything _better_. I thought taking you in, especially now with the Sentinel thing, was going to really be challenging. I was climbing the walls before you got here. And you took one look at the place and -- shazam!" 

"You just needed an objective opinion," Blair hazarded. 

"No, I needed _you_. And you were right there. And you've been here. And I.... " Jim's voice trailed off; when he spoke again, it was with more confidence. "I really appreciate your being here, Chief. I thought maybe you should know. I don't say it enough." 

"Thanks." Blair reached his hand out to Jim's arm, uncertain if he should touch. He settled for grazing his fingers lightly against Jim's forearm. 

Jim felt it, of course, and responded by just barely shifting away. Fearful he'd crossed a line, Blair slowly eased himself away and tucked himself against the arm of the couch, chin on his knees. 

"I went out tonight," Jim said, tracing a pattern on the couch cushions. Blair was no Sentinel, but he could almost hear the wheels turning in Jim's head. He remained silent, waiting for Jim to process; eventually, Jim seemed to decide something. "Figured I'd get a couple beers, see some friends, maybe get lucky." 

"You look really hot like that," Blair commented, and bit his lip. //Occasionally,// he told his mouth, //I'd appreciate it if you'd check in with the brain before shooting yourself off.// 

"You think?" Jim smiled slightly; he seemed more pleased than offended. 

"Yeah," Blair dared. "It's a good look for you." 

"I ended up with a buddy of mine at the Phoenix, across town," Jim continued, reaching to take a sip of his beer and finding it empty. He looked at the bottle wistfully for a moment and then set it down, glancing over at Blair. 

Blair did his level best to keep his expression blank, not certain of how he should respond. Although it hosted some seriously good bands, the Phoenix served an almost exclusively queer clientele. 

He knew he hadn't been able to hide his reaction when Jim's sharp eyes narrowed at him. "You know the place?" 

"Jim.... that's a gay club." 

"You know it?" 

Blair nodded, his head spinning slightly. He just couldn't imagine Jim Ellison getting down with the alternative college students on the Phoenix's dance floor; he had an even harder time seeing him hanging in the bar drinking microbrews with the yuppie gay men that favored the place. 

Flirting with them, say, in a sleek, confident, black-denim-clad my-body-is-a-temple, come-and-worship way. Like a cat might flirt with a mouse. 

Damn, his imagination _could_ go there. Yowza. 

"I was there with a friend," Jim repeated, mumbling. 

"Best dance bands outside of Seattle," Blair said, giving them both the opportunity to save face. 

"Yeah." 

"You had a point here, before? Why didn't you -- " he was going to say "get lucky," but checked himself and said, "stay out?" 

"That's just it," Jim said,staring at a point just to the left of Blair's shoulder. "The club was so loud, and I was hanging out with an Army buddy I have absolutely nothing in common with anymore, and it kind of came to me, you know?" 

"What did?" 

Finally, Jim's eyes actually looked into his own. Blair could see the fear there, and he was busy admiring Jim for being the kind of man who didn't let fear hold him down, when Jim said, quietly, "I guess... what I mean is... the hell with it. I couldn't think of anywhere I'd rather be than here, or anybody I'd rather be with than you." 

Blair's heart stopped. Why couldn't Jim hear that it had stopped? 

"And I know that's entirely out of line. And I'm sorry. Maybe you should leave. Honest, though, if it were just up to me, I'd tell you to stay. You've been a real help, and I like having you here. But I don't want you to be uncomfortable." 

"Uncomfortable?" 

"I'm... pretty much... bisexual," Jim said, almost inaudibly. "I thought you should know." 

"Hard to say it the first few times, isn't it?" 

"How'd you...." Jim stared at him. "Oh. Oh!" 

Blair grinned. 

"Still. I mean," Ellison visibly strove to recapture his momentum. "Really?" 

"I'm bi, too. Known since I was nineteen. Todd. He was a really awesome guy; you'd've liked him. I mostly date women, really, but I do hit the clubs. And not just for the dancing. I wouldn't hold it against the right person, you know, if he was a guy." 

"Oh." And Blair could see Jim's features shuffle through this new information. The subtle shifts between surprise, anger, relief, and confusion barely showed on his well-disciplined face, but Blair knew what to look for and he'd gotten good, fast, at reading Jim Ellison's emotions. 

"Did you just figure it out?" he asked gently. 

"No, I've known for a long time." Jim seemed engrossed in a frayed spot on the seam of his jeans. "I just don't tell very many people, that's all. I'm not _political_ about it. I don't. I'm not...." 

"Queer?" 

"Yeah. No. I mean --" 

"Yeah, Jim, I get it." Blair recognized the same reticence in Jim that had made him constitutionally incapable of ordering from the makeup counter. "You're not out." 

"Really not out. And that was another thing that made me think maybe we shouldn't live together. I mean, for Christ's sake, Chief, you wear eyeliner." 

"And I've got a nipple ring," Blair teased wickedly. 

"I know." The admission was almost a moan, and Blair took pity on him. 

"It's just a look. But I understand what you're saying. And I know people are talking, at the station. You want me to tone it down, man, I can do that." 

"I like the way you look," Jim admitted, his eyes dark with shame. 

"You make it sound like you're an axe murderer, Jim." 

Jim shook his head. It's just that I never wanted this," he said rubbing a hand along his face. "I never wanted to have these senses. And I never wanted to be... like this. It's not who I _am_." 

"I hear you." Blair remembered his own coming-out days. "You have this picture of yourself in your head, and it totally does not include the concept of, like, _being_ with a guy, and then you wonder if the picture of yourself is wrong, or if the concept has no business being in your head." 

Jim looked at him, and smiled. "Yes, exactly." Blair could feel the entire room relaxing from the release of tension, and he grinned back. 

"So, did you ever do anything about it?" he asked, wondering if he'd crossed into the forbidden zone. 

But Jim seemed to accept the question equably enough, and shrugged. "I've messed around some, yeah, but...." He shrugged and looked away again. "Never seriously, I guess." 

"Did Carolyn know?" 

Jim shook his head. "Whenever I hit it off with a woman, I think, 'see, I was wrong the whole time.' Caro and I... damn. We had enough problems, by the end, and in the beginning I didn't want to spoil it. She might've guessed. I don't know." 

"So if you're cool with it, what's the big deal now? You find somebody serious?" He was pleased his voice held steady, steadier than he felt. 

Jim shrugged, shaking his head. "It's just a phase, or something. Mid-life crisis. You want a beer?" 

End of conversation, apparently. Blair sighed, disappointed. He wished Jim would open up even more, but understood that he'd been privy to a very rare and special disclosure. One Jim had never even shared with his *wife.* 

"Love one. Thanks." 

"They're in the fridge." Jim smirked, and Blair laughed out loud, sliding off the couch and extending a hand to his friend. 

"Care to join me in a cold one, m'sieur?" 

"Bring me one back?" 

"You hatching something under there?" 

"Cute, Sandburg." But he took Blair's proffered hand -- and both of them felt a shock. Just an regular, natural, somebody's-been-building up-static charge. Their eyes met, and Blair turned his head away, confused at the way his passing, purely objective interest had just turned so sharply into knee-weakening arousal. 

Jim stood up next to him, right in his space, and Blair didn't move. There was something about Jim's solidity, his heat, that Blair wanted to keep right next to his body. Or on top of it. Or in it. And the brutal awareness of the thought, that he wanted Jim, wanted him _bad_ , made him stare open-mouthed at his partner. 

"Oh, shit," Ellison whispered, and then his mouth swept down on Blair's own, kissing him fiercely, tasting him, _owning_ him like nobody had ever done before. 

"Understand me," Jim said. "I want you to stay. But you had to know that I that I like you." Jim's thumbs ran over his lips. "I really, really like you. Like this." And this time the kiss was so soft and gentle that Blair was seriously shocked at its delicacy. 

Fierceness, he might've expected. Not this. This kind of gentleness, wrapped in such strength, could undo Blair like nothing before had ever undone him. 

He knew, had known from the first, that somewhere inside James Ellison there was a wounded sweetness, a goodness so secure that it could move mountains, a kind of integrity that Blair wasn't sure he could ever really understand. But he'd never expected that Jim would let the stone butch facade slip, even for a moment, to reveal what lay underneath. 

Blair felt himself gasp, and rubbed his head against Jim's shoulder. In surrender. The man was massive, powerful, incredible; all the men Blair had slept with had been artistic, whip-slender college bottom boys, taken in by the force of his personality, easily dominated. 

Jim Ellison was as smart as he was, and as fast. Jim Ellison could snap his neck like a twig. Jim Ellison could overmatch him. Blair arched his back and moaned, enjoying the sensation of it, the sound of Jim's knowing, masterful chuckle. 

//What am I _doing_?// 

"The rent," he said, choking it out. Hating himself for breaking the moment, desperate to regain himself. 

"What?" It was painful to watch the passion leave Jim's face, replaced by the hard, serious lines, drawn now in a pattern of confusion and annoyance. 

Blair stepped away. "How much rent?" 

"You pick _now_ to --" 

"Jim. You want me to stay. I want to stay. Great. But I'm not the rent boy, so what do I owe you?" 

Jim's eyes shuttered, and he turned away, looking out the balcony window. "I never meant it like that." 

"I know you didn't." Blair put his hand on Jim's shoulder, trying to calm him, surprised when Jim didn't shake him off. "But we went from 'stay' right into kissing... I just really need to be clear with this." 

"You haven't been _listening_ to me," Jim seethed, and slammed his hand against the wood of the balcony doors. 

Blair decided on silence, and waited for Jim to master his temper. 

Jim took a deep breath and stepped back towards him. "Listen this time," he said, taking him by the shoulders. "You make everything _better_. I should be paying _you_." 

Blair stared at him, honestly puzzled. "It's part of our agreement that I help you to control -- " 

"No, it's not. Our agreement would be something like, 'ooh, tough luck, Jim, why don't you look into organic products at the department store?'" 

Blair saw his point, nodding, "And maybe a chapter in the dissertation: 'Why Jimmy Can't Breathe' ?"  
Jim laughed out loud, unexpectedly. "Yeah." His laughter was a rich, warm, contagious sound, and Blair grinned at him. "Instead, you handled it, Chief. You _fixed_ it." 

"I'm your partner, aren't I?" 

"And I'm yours." Jim stepped back away from him. "Listen. What -- what just happened here has nothing to do with this offer. Stay here. We're partners. You need a place to live, and I've got one. So stay. But only if you want to." 

"I pay my own way." Blair maintained stubbornly. 

"Jesus, Sandburg... look. How much does an anthropologist make for being on call twenty-four-seven to consult the modern urban Sentinel? As much as a lawyer? A shrink?" 

"I don't have my Ph.D. yet," Blair temporized. "And this project --" 

"Bullshit. You're the world's leading authority on what's up with me, right? That's got to be worth a hell of a lot more than half the rent on a crummy loft." 

Blair could see the logic of it, when Ellison put it that way. "Well...." 

"I _own_ the place, Sandburg. So stay. You're paid up." 

"And this?" he asked, gesturing between them. "Where's this going?" 

"I don't know. I just...." Jim headed into the kitchen, snagged two beers out of the refrigerator, and handed Blair one. "We were getting beer," Jim reminded him. "Before." 

"Thanks." He watched Ellison drink half of his down, watched it go down his throat, and then took a gulp of his own. //Pretty strange to drink a beer in order to clear your head.// 

Jim leaned against the arm of the couch, looking out the window again. Blair wondered what in Cascade's night attracted the Sentinel's interest, what things his eyes alone could see. 

"Susan Frasier," Jim said after a while. "Something like that happens, it makes you think." 

"Thought you were supposed to be objective," Blair said automatically, and cursed himself inwardly for being insensitive just when Jim needed his understanding. 

"Well, objectively, then, Darwin, maybe she had somebody, okay? Somebody she kept meaning to call. Somebody she kept meaning to have a beer with." Jim gestured to the bottles in their hands. "But now we'll never know." 

Blair sat up on the back of the couch and lifted his hand to run along Jim's shoulder. "That's awful," he murmured. 

"Something like that happens, and I get this -- courage," Jim continued. "I head out to meet people, or I call somebody I've been meaning to call, and I start thinking, maybe I'd better get on with all that shit I've been meaning to do." 

"And that's why you went out tonight?" 

"Yeah. And then I got home, I saw you with Christine, and I just lost it. I needed you to know how I felt. Warn you, if nothing else." 

"Thanks, Jim," Blair said, putting his sincerity into the words. "That couldn't have been easy for you." 

"No, I guess it wasn't." Jim continued to stare out the window as he went on, almost inaudibly. "My entire life I've been told to fit in, don't be a freak. Toe the line. Not you. You do shit just to _be_ different. You don't even have to. You could get along fine without this. And I'm not sure I can, anymore." 

Something in that admission made Blair slide off the end of the couch and stand to face Jim, to pull him close and make sure those blue, blue eyes were looking into his own. "You don't have to, man. I'm right here." 

Jim stood to his full height, making as if to back away. "Chief, don't \--" 

Blair just pulled Jim's head down to his own, and kissed him as deeply as he could. And in that kiss he realized that he would have to be the one to submit, that Jim couldn't do it. It would make him _queer_. It would terrify him. 

And Blair also knew that, for a man as rigidly constructed as Jim Ellison, the admission that he wanted another man meant that the need ran deep, too deep to ignore. The knowledge gave Blair a certain kind of power. 

He was stronger than Jim Ellison. He could _dominate_ him. He _would_. Just not yet. 

That realization was enough to allow Blair, instead, to rub his head against Jim's shoulder again, to pull Jim's strong hands around his body, to apply himself single-mindedly to seduction with hot, eager kisses, leading the bigger man along until he felt Jim relax into his touch and take control again. 

Jim slid their shirts off, and gently urged Blair to his knees, and Blair went, terrified, but reminding himself that he was the stronger one here, that he could submit and give this to his friend, and Jim couldn't do it. 

//Not yet,// Blair vowed to himself. //But soon.// 

And Blair realized he was strong enough to wait for his pleasure, and that strength was one that had never been with him before. But Jim was smart and tough and big and _good_ , good in every way, and so Blair had had to find something else inside of himself, just to keep up, and that something was the part of himself that was able to wrap his lips around the outline of Jim's cock, to accept Jim's hands in his hair, to bend where Jim just wasn't strong enough to bend. 

He'd gone down on a man before -- he just hadn't remembered enjoying it so much, was all. His own eagerness scared him, but it was too late to stop, much too late, and he slid Jim's jeans off of the slender, muscled hips with the realization that he was entering territory he'd never really meant to visit. 

And then he heard Jim's moan, low in his throat, and saw Jim's beautiful, glistening cock, and he leaned his head into Jim's hipbone, overcome with desire, mastering his panic to admit that this wasn't just about who was stronger, or better, and thought, //hell, I'm a world traveler.// 

He opened his mouth, and looked up at Jim, who was looking down at him, unbelieving, as Blair took Jim in. Then both of them had to close their eyes, and Jim tried to keep himself from moving into Blair, from directing him, and that encouraged Blair to lead him on, opening his throat and _letting_ Jim take his mouth. And Jim's hips thrust in his hands, but still he remained silent, almost motionless. 

Fear? 

Blair pulled away from Jim's cock to gently suck each testicle, determined to break Jim's silence before he came. "You like this," he said, his throat hoarse, looking up at him. 

Jim just moaned, his hands tightening around Blair's head, looking away as if he were unwilling to admit what he was seeing. 

Oh, this was gonna be _fun_. 

He brought his mouth back to Jim's cock and licked him, leaving him slick and wet, and ran one finger up and down the length of him until the finger was covered with saliva and pre-ejaculate -- and then he slid that single finger around Jim's testicles, past his perineum, and gently into the cleft of Jim's tight, gorgeous ass. 

He wasn't surprised when Jim caught his wrist, pulling the questing finger away. "Not there." 

Blair let himself sigh -- he felt it -- and took his mouth away, sitting on the floor. "All right." 

"But --" 

"If you don't want me to touch you, Jim, that's fine." 

"Sandburg, don't fuck with me." 

"Fine," he said, mock-innocent. Knowing he was pushing Ellison way further than anyone with half an ounce of sense would dare. "It's too bad, though. That's a really, really beautiful erection you've got there." 

"Blair!" 

"And I'd _love_ for you to fuck me with it." He gave Jim his best puppy-eyed stare; Jim's eyes went wide with lust, and the moan he made this time was unmistakable. //Got him.// "But if asses are off limits.... God, that's _really_ a shame." 

"What are you trying to do to me?" 

Blair reached out and caressed Jim's hip, the outside of his thighs. "I want you to trust me. Completely. I want to be able to trust you, because otherwise this is going to go nowhere. But you have to let me touch you, Jim. You have to trust me." As he spoke, he gently lifted Jim's ankles and feet out of his discarded jeans. //He went out commando,// Blair noticed wildly. 

"I do trust you," Jim said slowly. "I just -- " 

"Then let me give you what you need, what you want. Let me touch you." He slid his hands to cup the outside of Jim's ass, lifted his head to lick Jim's cock again, eagerly. 

Jim sank to his knees, shuddering, and Blair slid to the floor, spreading Jim's thighs apart to lick at his cock, his testicles, and to gently, gently kiss the cleft of his ass. 

And Blair had almost forgotten about Sentinel senses until that moment, when Jim shouted with the sensation of it, falling forward on his hands and knees, and moaning his name, "Blair," so eloquently that Blair relented, and lifted both of them back onto their knees as he kissed Jim's mouth, giving him back control. 

And Jim took it. Man, did he _ever_. Blair felt himself nearly fly through the air, and land with a _whump_ on his back as Jim ran his mouth, his hands, over Blair's body like a starving man. "I didn't know," Jim whispered, as if he were afraid to break the stillness, "I didn't know it would feel like that. So damned good." 

And Blair realized that this was the first time Jim had even _had_ sex since the emergence of his Sentinel abilities, and he felt humbled by that. Honored. 

"Take me," he said, meaning it wholeheartedly. It had been years since he'd gone that far, and he hadn't liked it much then, but his body was thrumming now with a new need, and Blair was too curious to back down now. He wanted to be first with Jim, like this, to be the first ever to make love to a Sentinel. 

To make love to _Jim_. To all that he was. 

God. 

To _make love_ to him. 

"Bed," Jim said, his mouth tonguing Blair's nipple ring, and Blair felt the sudden cold as Jim rose, hauling him to his feet and pointing him towards the curtain of his bedroom, and Blair stumbled toward it, hardly able to walk he was so hard. 

They made it into the bedroom and Blair bent over, sweeping a pile of books off the bed, and turned around just as Jim's features were settling into the familiar and terrifying slackness of a zone-out. 

"Stay with me," Blair said sharply, kissing him, and Jim snapped back to himself, finishing the kiss with Ellison thoroughness. "What was that?" 

"It smells like you in here," Jim said, and his voice seemed filled with wonder. 

"It smells like me everywhere I go, Jim." 

"No, like all of you. Not just you when you're clean," and Jim _licked_ Blair's jaw, as if in illustration. "Like all of you. Sweat and dirty socks and... stale rut." 

Blair couldn't possibly find anything in that worth zoning about, and made a face to say as much. 

"It's so goddamn sexy," Jim added, and then Blair was flying through the air again, this time onto the bed, and he was getting to truly appreciate the difference between skinny college boys and a powerful, grown man, a distinction that continued to grow as Jim's strong hands worked away his boxers and rolled him over onto his stomach and Blair was not going to panic, would not panic.... 

"Is this safe?" Jim said, kissing the back of Blair's neck, and Blair wanted to say //no, it is definitely not safe, I have no idea here this is going, you're a trained killer for God's sake, and I'm falling in love with you,// and then he realized what Jim was asking and he manage to stammer out words to the effect that there were condoms in the dresser, and hoped that Jim would kindly think to bring along the K-Y as well, which he of course did. 

Jim was familiar with this part, at least, and Blair began to relax, feeling like a wild animal being gentled as Jim's thumbs caressed him, opened him up. "You've never done this before," Jim whispered. 

"A long time ago now," Blair said, "and I didn't really want it then." 

"What about now?" Jim asked, running his hands over Blair's ass, making Blair feel exposed and terrified and wanted, desperately wanted, and it felt so goddamn wonderful.... 

"Just don't stop," he gasped. "More." 

And Jim gave him more, much more, and entered him, gently at first, which was good, because he was _huge_ , and then Blair was afraid Jim would zone out and leave him basically impaled, and that was when he stopped Jim and guided him onto his back and mounted him, instead, controlling it all so there was more pleasure than pain. He bit Jim's fingers, caressed his body, kept him focused on more than one thing; he wanted to be certain both of them stayed present. 

And Jim reached up and caught Blair's cock in one hand, setting a rhythm, and Blair began to move in time with Jim's touch, and both of them were crying out in short, loud gasps, and Blair shouted as he came, finally, and opened his eyes just in time to see Jim's beautiful face soften entirely. 

When Jim came, it was silent, and Blair wondered if Jim had ever made noise during sex. Jim seemed lost for a moment, and Blair began to be worry that he had zoned, but no, he seemed simply stunned, and after a little while he opened his eyes with the most heart-rending, glorious smile. 

A smile of wonder, and joy, like a small child at Christmas. 

Jim's hands ran up Blair's body, resting on his face, caressing his cheek, and then they kissed, another one of those delicate, soul-stealing kisses, and Blair knew he was lost, lost for good, and he collapsed on Jim's chest and curled up there, letting Jim hold him, no matter what that meant. 

"So you'll stay?" Jim asked again, after such a long time that Blair was almost asleep. 

"I think I'd better," Blair said, and he wasn't sure whether he'd said that more for Jim or for himself, or where he could find an objective opinion. 

End 


End file.
